Homeward Bound
by MarisolM
Summary: The last time we see Silver, he's on a small Legacy lifeglider headed for the unknown.  This is my take on what happens next...
1. Amethyst

**It's a side-story I came up with for Silver while enduring some writer's block with _Adventure... _(argh!!) and it takes place after Silver leaves the Legacy at the end of the film. As usual, I don't own any of Disney's characters or any part of RLStevenson's original story pitch. Happy reading! --MM**

----------------------------

He was free to roam the entire Etherium if he wanted to.

John Silver raised his belly as he took a long, hearty breath as his Cyborg eye noted the distant, water spout-like comets along the dark ocean of space. His mechanical arm maneuvered the speed lever on the Legacy-sealed lifeglider, while the flesh arm simply held his tri-cornered pirate hat in place over his scalp, reminding him of a home he was going back to.

Throughout this journey, Silver told himself that he'd left the Legacy on a preconceived notion that he'd be hung for mutiny... that Captain Smollet would have his head on a platter... but he did not have the dignity to believe this.

Jim Hawkins had to grow up without a father. That was the truth, and the bulky pirate already felt he had become too involved with that boy's inner turmoil. But the man's running away was not at all in vain. He had showed the boy the makings of a good shipmate, teaching him how to maintain a ship's beauty and how to keep it running... and he knew that Jim was strong enough to fill in the rest of those adventurous pages on his own.

Any step further and Silver would have become a hypocrit in the boy's eyes. He could not bear to have Jim discover the rest of this middle-aged pirate's story in the Montressor Court of Law, with all the intended burglaries and homicides that came along with it. Thinking about it even made the man gulp his feelings down on the lifeglider, his Cyborg eye still keen with interest at the comets.

The man had left Treasure Planet with the pride of fulfilling an obligation... one that had cost him the right side of his entire body... and as he now felt his heavy mechanical peg leg tapping nervously about the hours ahead, John Silver knew he had made the right decision to leave Jim. Goodness knows, the boy may have secretly wanted him to meet that dear _mother of his_, to hope for the best... _oy_...and at that thought, Silver curled a side of his face and chuckled.

Silver could not see himself as the family man, really... at least not entirely... with his temper, and the monumental scar left on him as a Cyborg.

Humiliation and exile always seemed to follow his deformity into regular society.

Ever since the accident, Silver tried to avoid the public at all costs, knowing how they did not look at Cyborgs with a friendly eye about business. It still boggled his mind how the Commander... – _Cornelius Arrow, wasn't it? God be with him..._ – had practically chiseled himself in sweat to convince the dear Captain that a skilled Cyborg cook would be a useful addition to their crew... and he was glad that despite the mishaps, a respectable figure had trusted him again.

A rush of Etherial wind suddenly swept those thoughts out of Silver's head, and in a small instant he realized that Morph's frightened sticking reaction around his neck would never happen again on such an occasion.

_Haha, Morphy... li'l critter..._ the man mumbled to himself, smiling sadly.

There was no way around it. The burly pirate missed that little playful companion of his, and he wondered what sort of mischief the pink blob was putting Jim through now.

The sailing comets slowly faded into the darkness, and Silver moved over to check on the fuel reading on the Legacy lifeglider.

A soft grunt came from his throat as he knew that he could not travel all the way to Tempestad on a lifeglider; those small boats were designed only for day-long excursions, and it wouldn't survive the extremely long journey ahead of him.

Using his flesh hand, Silver craned his neck over and punched the navigational coordinates of his lifeglider onto the boat's inner-galactic positioning system, to determine the nearest planet to approach. He examined the blinking neon green and blue colors of the grid screen.

_48-point-75 Northward, 65-point-7-3 Eastbound... hmm... Jimbo, he's over'n Montress'r, there. Montess'r... ah, yes, so that must be Sahariet, there. And... crustin' barnacles, those specs... tha-- that's VERDONA!_

The Cyborg eye beamed as he looked at the planetary realm around Montressor, knowing that his destination was a toss-up between the desert planet called Sahariet, or one of the small moons of his musky, very green home planet of Verdona. It was a place he hadn't set foot on in years.

He quickly searched into his coat pocket for a digital compass to lead him towards the closest moon of Verdona within the next four hours... He was craving a good pint of rum and some poorly-made Bonzabeast stew.

As he took out the bronze, rusty round compass from his outer pocket, the Cyborg located a small shimmer or sparkle that crept out from the inside pocket. Rummaging through a few gadgets and stale sea biscuits he'd stored into that little pouch, the man's optic eye narrowed as his fingers dug out a tiny, reddish-purple jewel.

And the pirates eyes widened with delight.

It was an amethyst, all the way from Flint's Trove, clearly cut and polished. Silver could not even guess how the jewel had managed to dive into his inner pocket, between the chaos that brought destruction of Treasure Planet in those few minutes. Perhaps it was Fate itself?... or a little pink blob that always seemed to know how to make this man smile. And he smiled, regardless.

Silver had practically forgotten about the treasure in its entirety, after giving away the few collected pieces over to Jimbo and his mother.

The man held amethyst in his large hand, admiring it's shimmering quality, and seeing it as his only remaining piece to his past life on the quest for Flint's Trove. It had been such a long journey, almost like a relay that had taken generations of the Silver family, to picking up where others left off... and after the death of his brother, Ezekiel, that burden to find the Trove was passed on to be his own. 

Staring into the glimmering jewel on his palm, Silver remembered how his career as a fisherman was immediately brushed off after his brother's death was delivered as a message by robot to his trailer boat in the marshes of Verdona. Their father had told the boys at a very young age about their ancestral-wide destiny to find a certain treasure on a distant planet. The reason was still vague to the grown-up Silver, but as he continued with all that his brother (and many generations of theirs) had started, he saw himself grow more and more determined - sometimes cunning - to find this uncharted place in the Etherium and claim all of its gold and majesty. It became an obsession to him.

But now, as he juggled the little gem on his fingers, it seemed like this jewel would mark the start of a new adventure for this large, slightly overweight Cyborg. Would he go back to the fishing trade with all of his scars and criminal records, or would he continue with the sailing and rule-breaking for more thirst for the unknown?

The Cyborg clutched the speed lever tightly, and after quickly putting the jewel safely back into his pocket, he held onto his hat and jolted the lever downwards, speeding excitedly into the darkness ahead of him.


	2. Legacy

He clutched the small amethyst in his hand like a companion.

Hours passed by before the Legacy lifeglider landed gently with a small thrusting of the engine, onto the cold, mossy dock of the second eastward moon of Verdona.

John Silver wrapped the coat around himself tightly like a blanket, overlooking the misty marshes of the moon with a sincere warmth in his face, of a place he used to be so familiar with. He shut down the lifeglider with the appropriate lever and took out the docking rope from the small toolbox provided.

The air seemed heavy as he sniffed that dense, musky feeling of Verdona and all its mysteries, despite how he had left those moons many years ago.

Silver carefully climbed out of the lifeglider and stomped his pegleg firmly onto the rickety dock, its grey-wooden beams showing traces of age with the grassy moss peering from below them. He remembered the feeling of age this place had brought to him even as a young fisherman, testing the closed, foggy air out in the long nights to catch those dangerous and delicate schools of Protonic eels as they swam within the fog into his wired nets.

Catching dozens of eels in one night made for an extraordinary day the next morning, Silver recalled, envisioning those open fish markets at the mainland planet of Verdona, how he used his persuasive skills to sell his catch to the townspeople. The women, especially, enjoyed the natural charm Silver possessed as young man who loved to cook, and the Cyborg vaguely remembered those demonstrations he made, cutting up his eels with precision knives and letting potential customers sample on his unique blends of spices and fish.

_Yeh can't 'ave second'ury Cury Eel soup in front've my careful eyes, ah'll tell yer that! _

He remembered saying that line a handful of times, probably tossing sesame seeds into the small steaming cauldron on his market booth, while a group of young women giggled under their lovely hats and waited in line for a spoonful of taste.

It's how he had chosen to make a living for himself those days, and Silver kept it that way... despite those long arguments with his old man, who had practically vowed to _disinherit _him on the terms that he'd join the Interstellar Academy along with his brother, and represent a glorious future for their lower-class family. Thank goodness, the old man had died of old age before any ridiculous document was signed, but it still left John and Ezekiel Silver with a burden to bear.

The legacy. That _God-forsaken_ legacy that was supposedly caused by their ancestor hundreds of years ago, on a man-made planet that was entirely brought by a scientific visionary named Nathaniel Flint. Silver remembered how his father reminded him and his brother of that story time and again, how their ancestor, the _first _Ezekiel Silver, had been one of Flint's closest companions and had assisted in the creation of that mechanical planet from the very beginning. Nobody ever understood why a man would want to create (or assist in creating) a planet entirely out of scrap metal and function through fuel boilers, but their ancestor was the man who designed the web of industrial workings for the planet.

They were a _trio_, their father said... Flint, Silver... and a brilliant cartographer and navigator. A young tortoid named William Bones.

The tortoid's extremely long life span made him a creature of intense experience with the art of navigation, and Bones had was in the process of designing a new navigational method, that required delicate experiments and reeling, as well as expensive resources for its fueling.

According to his father's story, Flint and Silver both supported this secret invention of intergalactic portals, that would become the newest, safest method for business travel within vast galaxies in the Etherium. It seemed that the mechanism had worked wonderfully, and the trio found themselves navigating with their team across many planets to find resources for the mechanic planet's functions.

Why that ancient friendship had ended between the trio was still a mystery to John Silver... but nevertheless... the legacy was still there...

Apparently, when he discovered the magnitude of power that came with intergalactic space portals, the scientist named Nathaniel Flint found a stealth way to pay off his debts from building and designing that planet.

Or rather... he found a deadly way to never have to pay off those debts at all... and it wasn't long before Silver, Bones and dozens of others joined him on the pursuit to piracy.

The rest of the details were blurry in his mind, but as the Cyborg walked up to the base of the dock, watching his every step on the rickety beams, he remembered the end of his father's story to him...

The scientist-turned-pirate named Flint was left to die in his own "Loot of the a Thousand Worlds" by a mutiny, and the now ruthless man closed off the planet entirely, with only one spherical map as the key to open it again. Silver and Bones found themselves claiming the Treasure Planet each as their own, from all the magic that was made to it, and in one way or another... it was Bones who flew off into the unknown with the spherical map.

Bones knew that his tortoid life-span would outlive Silver's human life, no matter how far or how long Silver would pursue that map, and the creature knew that it was a matter _of time _when he could use his navigation skill and someday go back to that planet, to claim what he thought was rightfully his.

But Ezekiel Silver refused to see that happen, and he vowed to continue that chase for Treasure Planet... through the storytelling, and the legacy that he left to his children, his children's children... all the way to the fateful hands of a young fisherman named John Silver.

As the last part of the story left his mind, John Silver climbed out of the dock and onto the moist land before him, extremely slippery and rich with soil. All of a sudden he became weary of the old world he was slipping back into, not entirely ready to take on this role as a regular Cyborg anywhere. With assurance, he looked at the small reflection the amethyst's shimmer made of himself, on the palm of his hand, and Silver knew there was no other way to face the regular world again.

In spite of the memories and the dear symbolism it held for him, Silver sighed, slightly hesitating before he choose not to keep the amethyst for himself.

What good would a delicate jewel be for a large, overweight pirate? It would just be a glimmering trophy, when the real accomplishments were already marked in his memory, and that was more than enough for the Cyborg to keep.

He made a promise to himself, though... that he would not simply _give _the amethyst away, as he would to a beggar in the streets, or as a means to buy himself a month's supply of food.

No... no, it needed to be very insignificant, yet special... an inspirational moment that deserved such a beautiful gem for the occasion.

John Silver found himself walking up towards a small ill-lighted house on the hill that night, and realizing it was the old tavern, he felt that it was the next step for him to take that night. The Cyborg was on the search for eccentric company, and his hope was that he would run into some very old friends.


	3. Glory

He held a small breath under his nose, as the once-ruthless pirate stepped up to the exterior part of the tavern.

A rickety sign hanging from the wooden door, _G'Rache,_ proved to be a familiar one, going back to those young years, when he and his shipmates would sneak in to have an underage drink at the pub... back when his two sculpted arms would wrap themselves around a pretty face and flirt with a simple gesture as carrying a round of pints for his fellow men.

It wasn't that Silver dreaded what he had become, nor would he have traded an ounce to replace the adventures and dangers he had undertaken. All that he dreaded was that nobody in the old Verdonian tavern would be able to recognize him.

Carefully, going into what he presumed was the back door, Silver pushed himself into an old world with his mechanical hand, and braced the crustacean-smelling air around him.

He found his way into the steamy, rusty kitchen of the pub, where a couple of small platypus-creature cooks stopped, trembling at the pirate's overbearing figure.

It seemed that they grew even more stunned as Silver tipped his hat to them as a greeting.

"Don' mind me." He said. "I'm jus' takin'r short tour here..."

The platypuds looked at each other confusingly, wondering why such a bulky customer would want to enter through the backdoor. Silver just tossed a grin that meant no harm, eyeing over at the precious Sygnas eel frying on the stove, clearly noticing it was being overcooked. The man made his way out of the kitchen quickly, before he could spot any more culinary disappointments.

As the smelling of fresh fish, steaming water, and moldy plates faded out of the picture, the new scents of fresh Ginseng rum and beer seemed to overtake him quite humbly... as he pushed through the double-hinged kitchen door and shaded his eyes under the tri-cornered hat of his.

The entire place was lighted dimly by glass lamp, soft enough to edge into dark corners, yet powerful enough to locate the unfriendly scratches on the walls and cracking corners of windowsills. Despite Silver's mysterious presence, nobody in the tavern seemed to care that this pirate had just entered into his old life.

They customers were all different-looking, physically, and yet they all seemed to love the art of chatter with the spark of rum running through their veins. Silver could see it clearly in their pink faces and laughter. He noticed quite a few clusters of people gathered around for the late evening, singing heartily off tune to the rhythm of drumming tables, clamping their rum pints at the end of a long chorus.

It was a life he had seemed to leave behind a long time ago, and the Cyborg did not exactly know how to fall back into it again. Despite his exceptionally large mass, the pirate felt somewhat uneasy and foreign to the scene, such as the fruit flies hovering around the lamps.

Surprisingly... even before he had removed his tri-cornered hat to rub his tired scalp... a bald gaunt-looking man in a green trenchcoat set down his pint of beef squarely on the table, raising an eyebrow at the new customer in the _G'Rache_ tavern

"LONG JOHN!?"

Another large, gruff-looking man with the round, scruffy white beard managed to put down his drink sloppily and squint his good eye over to the tavern entrance. Silver, still leaning skeptically at the door, took his Cyborg optic eye and narrowed it to the bellowing old seafarer across the tavern's dimness... and realized it was indeed a familiar face.

The pirate raised his mechanical arm into an overwhelming hello, but groaned on the inside. It was the feeling anyone would have gotten when seeing their old boss.

"Chiron, ser!" Silver said, hoping that his voice had not changed much with the passing years.

"Where the BLOODY HELL-ya BEEN?"

The old man's yellow teeth shone alongside the glimmering lamplight, and Chiron did not care how far his bellowing voice took him through the tavern. With all the laughter and various conversations happening, Silver managed to get himself through the crowd, talking back to Chiron as he did so.

"Bahh, long story, ah'll tell yeh. Had teh take care o'some family business..."

Chiron and the man in the trenchcoat stared at Silver skeptically – seeing the man's missing arm and leg, and the material he'd replaced them with – and the smell of beer passed over them while their old friend finally sat down on a stool.

Silver placed his fleshed hand on his back to rub off an ache, and quickly noticed the looks of amazement in front of him. He glanced at his mechanical arm, and closed his Cyborg eye to brainstorm a quick explanation to it all. For some reason, all his mind could process was the thirst for Ginseng rum.

"Family business, eh?" The thin man let his dark green eyes glimmer with inner laughter, wondering about the irony that Silver was holding on them with his unusually brief storytelling.

"Aye, Jenkins...it took me'hr while, but... it is done." Letting himself sit comfortably on the stool, and listening to the random chatter around him, the man raised his mechanical arm for bar service.

"Silver, tha's the most ridiculous story ah've ever heard outta yer mouth." Chiron gulped the remaining beer in his pint and slammed it down for more efficient service. His small, short-sighted eyes couldn't help but examine that menacing-looking arm that was so intricately designed onto the former pirate. "Where in the blast-ended galaxy did ye leave yer arm?"

With his mild attempt at humor, Chiron awaited an explanation, but instead Jenkins started talking about his own thoughts about the Cyborg's authentic body parts, brushing the fuzz on his small beard.

"...ah reckon that looks like handywork of the Norsian mechanists, eh? Over at the Coral Galaxy?"

"Yer close, Jenkins." Silver commented, chuckling to himself as the incoming waitress suddenly walked with a careful pace after glancing his mechanical arm. "Ah was lucky enough ter run into a Norsian near the Asygnas Cross... a good man... he gave me this here eye fer half the price."

Immediately, the pirate seemed to be letting his deformity melt into the crowd's chatter, not worrying so much about the looks people gave at the metallic makings of his arm. As he continued to insert more detail into his story of Norsian Mechanist for his comrades' intriguing ears, he gathered his inner thoughts briefly into the lovely, yet terrified look of the waitress approaching the table.

She was fairly tall, a woman perhaps lingering through her late thirties... along with a bosom that suited the age well. Her radiant hazel eyes were paralyzing to Silver, even more as they hid themselves from the very dim light in the tavern. With one of her maroon-colored puff sleeves dangling at the shoulder (most likely out of stress, rather than other promiscuous reasons), Silver did not know whether to be mesmerized or frightened by the look of such honest, imperfect beauty.

As she finally made it to the table, Silver felt that his skills at flim-flammery had not abandoned him, and yet he did not think he could continue with the story he was entertaining to his old friends to come up with the best compliment to the lady. As his fleshed arm rummaged again into his coat pocket as a comforting habit, he suddenly remembered the amethyst encapsuled.

His Cyborg eye opened up in a friendly, unharmful way to the woman as she picked up Chiron's empty beer jug with a moment's glance at Silver. Her thick, long brown hair hung itself loosely off the shoulders, and Silver forced himself to not look passed the woman's face with his sincerity.

Jenkins, on the other hand, exquisitely spoke his mind with a cat-calling whistle.

The woman instantly lost her discomforting nature from the Cyborg, and spoke her mind to Jenkins as well, with a very loud grunting noise to begin.

"Blimey, 'as that rum gone over yer head, Jenkins? Ah've had it with yer whistlin' tonight. Ah'm no guard dog, ye hear?"

Jenkins laughed, and with that careful smile and the woman's rolling eyes, Silver was glad that the woman did not feel threatened by an incoming tease. From what he remembered, Jenkins was known for much worse flim-flammery in these taverns... a whistle was more of a compliment.

"Wha' can I get ye now, Chiron?" The lady's soft, yet commanding voice mesmerized Silver as she looked over to his boss. "A spiced Purp rum?"

"Aye, ye know me better than meh own stomach, Glory..." Chiron smiled in ridicule, to the woman's liquor suggestion, knowing he was far too old to be messing with those kinds of flirtatious thoughts.

"Delightful." The lovely woman named Glory nodded, writing the order in her mind, and then turned over to Silver flatly. It was as if his mechanical arm had never even existed now.

She didn't ask him anything, except she just stood there... her eyes all of a sudden becoming more brilliant with the light sneaking into them. Silver had no idea why she was standing there before him for what seemed forever... and he slightly hoped she would not change her mind.

And then, the pirate's Cyborg eye raised itself in stupidity; the man had indeed raised his mechanical arm to be served, after all.

"Ah, ehm...meh thousand apologies..." Silver could feel the metallic side of his temple warm up with embarrassment. "...Ah seemed ter have forgotten what was good here," came the pirate's cleverly dull excuse.

Glory blinked to the man's yellow Cyborg eye and smiled with disbelief. "Well... have ye tried the spiced Purp rum before? I's a local recipe... fairly strong, bu' it'll clear yer senses quickly."

John Silver could not help but smile from the woman's tiny brown freckles that danced below her eyes as she spoke so closely to him.

"Tha' sounds promisin', lass. Ah'll take one o'those." Silver placed his fleshed fist onto the table, showing his enthusiasm for the drink. As Glory stood there in slight fright and amusement, Silver realized how his fist was carrying the precious little amethyst from his pocket.

Silver's mind seemed to spark together from every direction, leading the man to believe that no other place would a piece of treasure suit itself more than around the neck of a very lovely woman. The pirate had chosen the perfect moment to give the last bit of his old life to a random act of boldness to a lady who offered him the best drink of the house.

As Glory dismissed herself from the table, nodding at Chiron and Jenkins, she turned back to walk into the chatter of the dim tavern, but Silver shouted a "wait, lass! A'nother small thing!"

The woman quickly glanced back at the boisterous Cyborg who requested her service again, and she shouted back, "what? What is it?"

Silver wondered if this request would sound too stupid and spontaneous, but for the sake of the promise he had made with the amethyst... he was going to make a necklace at all cost.

"D'yeh have any STRING?"


End file.
